Move Your Body, Shape Your Dreams

Celebrating 6th April, the International Day of Sport for Development and Peace 2016

Dream Up Festival, Kigali, Rwanda

Few days in advance, but with equal enthusiasm and spirit that is generated on April 6th worldwide, the One Stop Youth Center in Kimisagara hosted the Dream Up Festival to celebrate the power of sport to transform lives and communities. The one-day event was organized by UN-HABITAT in close cooperation with the Kimisagara OSYC team and was nothing but a success.

Sport is a powerful mobilizer, so why not use it for something more than just having fun. Rwanda is a beautiful country with third of its population below 30. Unfortunately, about 38.5% of them are living below poverty line, struggling to secure their basic needs. They don’t have time to play sports, yet alone to dream about their big bright future.

This is what inspired our team of Korean interns, Mina and HyunChul, to organize the Dream Up Festival to provide marginalized young people with an opportunity to forget about their hardships for a day and learn and enjoy themselves in a fun environment. Day filled with sports, cultural and educational activities brought together about 100 youth participants from different parts of Kigali. Throughout the day, the participants got to play various obstacle races and Korean games to spice up the sports activities and learn something new. While they’ve learned about sportsmanship and other sports values through games, the main educational component was encompassed in workshops about hygiene and sexual and reproductive rights as well as in essay writing contest.

The essay writing was a unique opportunity for us to hear the voices we usually don’t have access to. So we took the chance of assembling these wonderful young people into one venue and asked them to write a short essay about one of these topics:

What is your role in making Kigali the Top city in Africa?

What is your dream of Kigali?

What can the city of Kigali do to avoid informal settlements and get on the path of modernization?

The winners of each category were subsequently awarded with small prize and huge admiration from others. Finally, the additional dance and taekwondo performances made the day complete. UN-HABITATA would like to thank everyone involved for making it happen and for joining us in April 6th Celebrations!